In on-the-go sod harvesting the sod harvester contains a set of internal sod stations and sod transfer mechanisms that require the completion of sequential steps before the sod harvester can transfer a cut sod slab onto a sod pallet, which is typically supported by pallet forks. Once the sod pallet is fully loaded the loaded sod pallet is left on the sod field for later pickup. As the sod harvester continues to cut sod from the sod field the sod harvester automatically replaces the loaded sod pallet, which is left on the sod field, with an empty sod pallet so the internal sod processing can continue. The sod handling cycle of cutting sod and stacking the sod on a sod pallet, which is left on the sod field for later pickup, is then repeated.
Oftentimes the time required for the sod handling cycle within the sod harvester limits the ground speed of the sod harvester, which limits the sod harvesting rate. One of the difficulties in increasing the sod harvesting rate is that there are limits to decreasing the time of the sod handling cycle by simply increasing the speed of sod harvester. That is, decreasing the time of the sod handling cycle by increasing the sod transfer speed in the sod harvester may adversely affect the integrity of a sod slab, which is held together by a fragile root system. The increased sod transfer speed may lead to spoiled sod slabs due to increased forces on the sod slabs which are caused by the increased speed of the abrupt sod handling motions, which are imparted to the sod slab as the sod slab is transferred between stations within the sod harvester. Spoiled sod slabs within the sod harvester can lead to a disruption of the sod harvesting process.
A further impediment to increasing the sod harvesting rate is that for field stacking of sod slabs the sequential sod handling steps within the sod harvester cannot be eliminated if one wants to cut and stack the sod slabs for machine pickup. For example, one part of the sod handling cycle requires the step of replacing the loaded sod pallet with and empty sod pallet in order for the sod harvesting processing to continue, which requires waiting until a loaded sod pallet clears the pallet holder station and the pallet holder station is an alignment with the pallet forks before an empty sod pallet can be loaded onto the pallet forks.